Long-term treatment with the combination of amantadine and ribavirin in hepatitis C nonresponders. A case series.

In this report, we describe five cases of chronic hepatitis C that have been treated with the combination of amantadine and ribavirin for an average of 44 months, emphasizing one case where the patient showed improvement in liver biopsy after treatment, worsening on removal, then a repeated improvement with re-initiation. The five patients in this report belong to a pool of sixty patients from a 6 month pilot study using amantadine and ribavirin where treatment was subsequently continued. The mean ALT was 82.8+/-32 U/L pre-treatment and 33.8+/-17.3 U/L post-treatment (p=0.02). The mean Knodell score was 7+/-1 pre-treatment and 3.6+/-1.5 post-treatment (p=0.13). The mean viral load was 584,155+/-248,027 lU/ml pre-treatment and 225,878+/-190,143 IU/ml post-treatment (p=0.05). In this case series we provide provocative data on the long-term use of ribavirin and amantadine in the HCV non-responder.